


Scum

by plumedy



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Angst, Frenemies, Gen, Handcuffed Together, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Seine, Shaving, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone sees Javert releasing Valjean and they are both arrested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsHorowietzky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHorowietzky/gifts).



> Okay, so some of this is historically accurate (like... shoe prices), while the rest is... not so much. I tinkered with things a bit for the sake of iddiness X) Also featuring obligatory bread jokes.
> 
> The prompt is courtesy of my lovely friend to whom the work is gifted. I hope I have managed to do it justice ._.

Something upset the quiet of Jean Valjean's dying world. It was like a gust of wind raising the dust from a scorched field. The door of his cell opened, and the guard shoved in an awkward, dishevelled figure. Looking from the gloom, Valjean couldn't see the man's face very clearly; at first all he could make out was the strangely squelching sound of his footsteps.

Then, impossibly, he knew.

They looked at each other in dull stupefaction. _How; you, a prisoner?_ Both seemed to ask. _But that is impossible; there must've been some sort of mistake._

The guard took the newcomer by the arm and all but thrust him at Valjean. Panting, cold, smelling inexplicably of scummy water, he nearly collapsed to the floor. Valjean found his hands grabbing the coarse blue fabric of the man's coat; one of the silver-plated buttons dug painfully into his palm. He was dimly glad of this distraction. What was in front him was far too incredible to believe.

His long thin hair disarranged and his lower lip split into a large ugly wound, Javert looked up at Valjean.

Paying little heed to this mysterious pantomime, the guard approached them, unlocked one of Valjean's handcuffs, and in one quick practiced movement snapped it shut on Javert's wrist.

"Get used to each other," he counselled gruffly, though not without sympathy. "It'll be awhile yet."

For a while they stood there dumbly, under the bleak light of the lantern in the corridor, and listened to the softening tinkling of the buckles on the boots of the leaving guard. There were no words to be said and even the silence that was left to them felt wrong and unnecessary.

Valjean lowered himself gingerly upon the rack and tugged at the chain. No response at first; he rapped Javert's wrist with his fingers, as had once been his habit when in an _accouplement_. He thought nothing of it; but to Javert, the touch seemed scalding iron, and he recoiled. The chain strained. Valjean lowered his gaze and looked in slight bewilderment at his own scarred bony hand, now suspended between them.

"My apologies," he said slowly. "I did not mean to distress you, Inspector."

"I am not an inspector anymore," Javert snapped thickly.

He sat beside Valjean. Something inside his boots kept squelching loudly as he moved.

The irony of their shared position hadn't escaped Valjean. Was this justice? He wondered. Some sort of cold, mirthless retribution?

Or perhaps this was simply the divine idea of a joke.

He continued to survey his unlikely chainmate. It was cold and with anyone else, Valjean would've naturally huddled for warmth. But at once this natural course of action was impossible, barred to him. He looked down at their hands and saw that Javert's long veiny fingers were curled awkwardly to one side, much as though he hoped to stretch the cast iron chain by sheer power of desire. He would not suffer human touch, and to break his flimsy isolation would be to inflict needless pain, to be cruel. No; better cold than cruelty.

Javert's usually neat uniform was all askew, one of the buttons hanging by a thread; the loose black necktie and the unbuttoned collar of his shirt looked as fine as those of any street drunkard. Inspector Javert – the Javert he knew – would never have set a foot outside his house dressed like this.

And then, for the first time since he had taken Marius from the barricade, Valjean felt something stir within him. Compassion. He had seen men like this before; he had once been one himself. With buttons torn off, with faces bruised because they knew no better than to resist; their shirts and ties undone because they had let themselves go in their desperate conviction that their lives were now over. Little they knew that at this seeming end, their suffering had but begun.

“They don’t know my real name,” Valjean remarked. “Was I not arrested on your orders?”

There was in his eyes an expression of gentle suspicion. Noticing this, Javert seemed to twitch.

“What difference could it possibly make?” He spoke with an effort, as if having to remember the words he’d once forgotten.

 

He was lying. Of course he knew very well what the difference was. This knowledge had been his downfall, his ruin. But what could this man care?

Javert’s sacrifice had not been accepted. Someone had discarded it, dismissed his doubts and his remorse; given him to understand that this was not enough. Before being freed, he understood, he had to be punished and humiliated further. Ostracised and made to live in the world he had always despised, Javert had no more dignity to give up and no more choices to make.

Scum. He was scum now.

It seemed only appropriate that there was literal scum clinging to his ribs, his shirt and trousers soaked with Seine’s rotten water. He could find in himself no energy to ask anyone for a permission to change.

It would not have done to talk, anyway. That guard outside – could he be more obvious about his eavesdropping? Whenever either of his prisoners made a noise, his thin shoulders, weighed down by large golden buttons, tensed and shot up almost comically. A newbie, of course. Completely inadequate for the task he had been ordered to perform. Javert tasted something foul in his mouth. He itched to get up and scold the guard for his incompetence.

Confounded Valjean seemed to notice something – Javert had not quite succeeded in preventing his leg muscles from tensing. These large luminous eyes were on him now, searching. Kind.

Even greying and unshaven, Jean Valjean looked strangely young. There was something almost childishly direct about his gaze. And Javert felt himself starting to tremble. But in that moment, to his immense relief, a loud metallic noise from the corridor drowned out the clinking of their shared chain. It was dinner time in their wing of La Force.

The thick brown stew was uneven in colour; here and there chunks of stuck-together beans floated in the bowl. It was a wholesome but not particularly appetizing dish. Neither of the cell-mates, however, had any qualms about such minor inconveniences; Valjean drank the soup in gulps, while Javert began eating it spoonful by measured spoonful.

He had forgotten this taste. It was as if every prison cook in France followed the same closely guarded recipe. The soup tasted like something one would want to forget.

He eyed Valjean on his right. The man sat with his shoulders hunched, his bowl empty, a large chunk of bread in his hand.

How had it felt to receive a slice of bread as a meagre reward for his suffering every day for nineteen years after having stolen just one loaf? Javert made a brief calculation in his head and frowned. Jean Valjean would have been given approximately six thousand nine hundred daily rations during his time in Toulon; that constituted more than twelve thousand _livres usuelles_ worth of bread. How impractical.

Yes, it was impractical, but also – and he was afraid, even mentally, to say this to himself – it was ridiculous.

His food now seemed to him devoid of flavour, and he had to struggle to keep down what little he had already eaten. He felt as though he had stolen that soup and that bread.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Valjean’s tone was demanding. Javert didn’t quite feel like looking up, though the privacy this refusal gave him was illusory enough. “You’ve seen what happens to convicts who refuse food. Eat that up.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“For Christ’s sake, man! What are you going to do, starve yourself to death in front of me?” For a while Valjean fell silent. Javert could feel his gaze upon himself.

“You must be kinder to yourself, Javert,” said Valjean at last, quietly and in a softer tone.

The word “must” had some effect on Javert. It was as if a slight sparkle flew through his entire being, engaging those parts of him that had, a moment ago, seemed dead. At once he looked at Valjean with great acuteness, his head inclined slightly to one side. The expression in his eyes was dubious. He seemed about to ask, _but what is the number of the statute that says that I must?_

“And take off your boots while you’re at that.”

Javert shrugged his shoulders and complied. A good litre of water came slushing out, soaking the white linen boot cuffs. It spread on the floor in dribbles, dark like something unwholesome.

For a while they sat in silence. Valjean bent down uncomfortably, trying to avoid yanking at the chain, and picked up a small bit of weed from the puddle forming around his shoes. His large fingers held it tightly, and he scrutinized it with a look suggesting that this bit of plant matter had done him some great personal injury.

“Have I done this, Javert?” he asked in a changed voice.

“No,” corrected Javert, ever painstaking with his facts. “ _I_ have done this.”

Of course, in his first fit of despair he had blamed Valjean – for that and for more. But it would not do. It would not do. 24601 was many things, but an attempted murderer was not one of them.

Valjean, however, seemed unsatisfied with this verdict. He looked at Javert long and hard, his jaw tense and his breath quickened with emotion.

“Eat,” he repeated stubbornly, pushing Javert’s bowl forward on their shared rack. “And you’ll take my shoes”.

Javert wanted to scoff, to laugh at this man’s arrogance. He wasn’t some sort of whore to be bought for a pair of half-an-ecu _brodequins_. But the retort caught in his throat when he looked up at Valjean’s face. With numbing terror he saw that there was no pity in Valjean’s expression; only understanding. So much understanding – like in a dark mirror, he glimpsed a reflection of his own self-loathing, self-doubt; his hatred, his despair. Javert reeled.

“You’re not a prostitute to be bought for a pair of shoes,” guessed Valjean with a wry smile. “Well, and I am not buying anything.”

Shocked into numbness, Javert accepted the brodequins mutely. They were well-worn and comfortable, warmed by Valjean’s body heat, if a little too big. Valjean really was quite awkwardly large.

He finished his bread and stew without quite noticing it. Shortly after they were given a little wine; Javert, who had been a teetotaller his whole life, no sooner realized what he’d drunk than he’d gulped it all down. It was terrible watered-down port. Still, he doubted he would’ve had much choice, and this assumption was confirmed when he caught Valjean looking at him encouragingly.

“Do you resent me, Javert?” Valjean asked in a low tone, almost with wonder.

“Yes,” Javert admitted honestly.

“As you may,” agreed Valjean. There was a strange look of almost sweet sadness in his eyes, and Javert wondered if it wasn’t the port that had affected him. “I too had once resented someone.”

This was a dangerous beginning. Before Valjean could proceed, Javert hastily touched his sleeve with his fingers and shook his head gravely.

“Quiet,” he merely said, nodding at their guard. Valjean gave him a blank look in return, and Javert felt a touch of exasperation. Couldn’t he see?

For the next dozen minutes he itched to explain. At last the guard scratched his neck, put his rifle down with a clink, and went to relieve himself. Javert had to cringe at the sheer number of disciplinary offences just committed before his very eyes.

“You’ve said they don’t know your name,” he said evenly, without turning to Valjean. “Nor, I presume, your number. They think you are a revolutionary, surely.

He lingered for a moment.

“My behaviour was… unexpected. There’s a reason we’re in the same cell and have still not faced trial, V-” he cut himself off and finished, with a palpable effort, “-Fauchelevent.”

Valjean flinched at this, though whether it was Javert’s words or his use of Valjean’s pseudonym that affected him was unclear.

“You truly did let me go, then,” he said very quietly.

“And you truly did come back like the insane fool you are,” conceded Javert. After a moment, Valjean’s shoulders shook abruptly and he breathed out a weak huff.

“You meant to say _a man of his word_ , Javert, surely,” said he.

“Same thing,” Javert parried with a scowl. “What you have done was harebrained, and for no good reason.”

Over the past few hours he had lied so much he had quite made up for his life full of truths. What Jean Valjean had done was admirable, brave; positively sublime. Comparing himself to Valjean, Javert found his own courage lacking.

How he wished for Valjean’s bravery now. Soon would come the part he, even as a guard, used to find most distasteful; there was in it an undercurrent of deliberate humiliation, a sinful enjoyment of human suffering. Of course, it had also the very practical purpose of ridding prisoners of lice – and yet.

He hadn’t worn his hair short since he turned sixteen and started working on the _chaine_. He didn’t remember what his reflection in the mirror had looked like when he had been shaven clean.

In other regards he had never particularly adhered to latest fashions; but that had stuck. Sometimes Javert would look at the portrait of the spectacularly bewigged King hanging in the Prefecture building and reflect, with a little cringe of shame, whether he didn’t wear his hair long in a vain attempt to look nobler. But he knew there was nothing noble in his features. He looked irredeemably crude.

There it was. The guard was not returning alone. Another man walked alongside him, a large bowl in his meaty hand. _No need to worry_ , Javert said to himself. He had gone through worse.

“Right, you two,” drawled the guard, gesturing with his rifle. “Ready for a good ol’ shave?”

The cell was unlocked and the barber came in, putting his bowl onto the rack. He seemed rather disgruntled; no wonder, thought Javert. Where he would usually be paid for dozens of shaven convicts, he was now being paid for just two, one of whom didn’t even have a beard. Hardly an impressive day’s wage.

The sharp unpleasant tang of soap mixed with the smells of beans and damp stone. Lather was crawling over the edge of the bowl.

“Perhaps we could do it ourselves,” came Valjean’s voice from his left, changed almost to the point of unfamiliarity. Javert looked up at him, stupefied, and saw that ingratiation was spread thickly over his face like butter over a quiche. “We would not like to trouble you, Monsieur, to shave just the two of us. I am sure you have more important affairs to attend to – a man like yourself.”

He rose, clinking with his chain, and stepped forward slightly, inconspicuously inserting his large arm between Javert and the barber. The damned man _knew_. He knew everything, confound him, confound him.

The flattery was outrageously, offensively crude. Yet, unbelievably enough, it had the desired effect. That incongruous little man straightened his back and looked at them solemnly, a greasy glint of self-importance in his small eyes.

“I will pay you more,” promised Valjean, tinkling with something in the pocket of his dirty cream-coloured vest. That seemed to seal it, and the barber handed over his instruments, grumbling vaguely in a not unsatisfied manner.

Javert didn’t know if he felt relief or unease. Valjean shoved the bowl and the razor blade at him almost too casually, sitting down in front of him and bowing his grey head low. Javert hesitated.

He could see Valjean’s shoulders move slightly as he breathed. He could see a vein beating on the side of his bony sunburnt neck. Javert’s own hands suddenly seemed rough to him – rough and far too used to holding a revolver.

Valjean blinked and looked a question at him. Nodding hastily, Javert dipped the razor into the lather and made the first stroke. The mundanity of the task was dizzying. _Forget who this is_ , he told himself. _This is a mechanical matter._

But it wasn’t. Valjean’s hair was soft and lay on his head in long grey waves, and removing it felt like an act of cruel mockery.

“Hurry on there,” the guard piped up. “I canna stand around all day long, you know.”

Javert refrained from pointing out that this was quite literally the man’s job description. Instead, he applied himself harder to the matter of shaving Valjean. Nearly the entirety of Valjean’s skull was bare by now; but there were still the sideburns and the small beard.

“Raise your head,” murmured Javert. Valjean complied without hesitation, and Javert wished immediately that he hadn’t. They had to look each other in the eye now.

Javert did his best to concentrate on Valjean’s left cheekbone instead. Shaving the man while handcuffed to him was unsurprisingly uncomfortable. The length of the chain did allow them some freedom of movement, but Valjean’s right hand was still raised awkwardly and Javert worried that any slight movement on Valjean’s part might make the razor slip.

Only a little tuft of hair left now. Javert bent closer to shave it off cleanly, the chain clinked against Valjean’s handcuff, and they both flinched. Javert did not at once realize that the patch of raw red soaking the bit of foam on Valjean’s cheekbone was blood.

He hastened to wipe it off, but only succeeded in smearing it over Valjean’s clean chin. His own fingers were bloodied, and the cut continued to run freely, swelling with scarlet. Ridiculously, Javert felt himself break into a cold sweat.

He did not know what scared him more – the fact that he’d hurt Valjean or the effect it produced on him. Over a short period of time, he had gone from wanting nothing more than punishment for Valjean to worrying lest the wretched convict should come to any harm. How that could’ve happened was inconceivable to former Inspector Javert; and yet it was fact.

“Some barbers you are,” commented the owner of the razor and the bowl.

“Not much practice around here,” parried Valjean, his gaze briefly slipping to the side. He barely seemed to register the cut. Then he noticed Javert’s agitation, and suddenly his face grew serious. He mouthed something carefully; it took Javert some time to decipher the words, but Valjean repeated them a few times, and finally the meaning became clear.

Ce n’est pas grave. _Ce n’est pas grave_.

All this did was make Javert’s hands shake more. Thankfully, he was finished with his task. Valjean sat in front of him, clean-shaven and bareheaded, looking almost boyish now. He gestured for Javert to hand him the razor.

“Come; I will try my best, Javert,” he said softly. There was on his lips a sad half-smile. _Don’t_ _be afraid of me,_ Javert seemed to hear, and he wanted to snap something back; only he couldn’t quite think of any cutting remarks. In fact, he could hardly think at all. His heart was clenched, pumping blood noisily and unevenly.

Valjean reached out and gently pried the razor from Javert’s fingers. The lather had sagged a little, and Valjean whipped it up expertly. It must not be quite true about his alleged lack of practice, Javert thought without much coherence.

“I am sorry,” he heard Valjean’s voice, barely above a whisper. And then the first locks of Javert’s long silvering hair, his shameful secret pride, fell into the puddle of foam on the floor.

Had he ever been an inspector of the police? Achieved honours and promotions, been singled out for his loyal service, worn a coat with an emblem of the Prefecture? Or was that all a mad dream of a prison boy?

A sudden dreadful sensation of belonging overwhelmed Javert. The same thing was being done to him as to any other inhabitant of La Force; as to the most pathetic Toulon convict. It felt as though all his life he had been no more than a fraud, hiding among the law-abiding French citizens and wanting so desperately to defend what had never been his to claim. He was _scum_.

At this thought his throat constricted. He was dimly aware of the sensation of Valjean’s surprisingly gentle hands holding his chin, and he clung to that comfort like one possessed. He clung to the image of Valjean, handcuffed, clean-shaven, stripped of any appearance of a free man, and yet as dignified as ever; as admirable as ever. His eyes wet and wild, he looked unseeingly at the face before him, and in that moment it was blindingly, painfully obvious to him that he had never admired or respected anyone more than he admired and respected Jean Valjean.

 

Unknown to Valjean, something had sprouted and grown within him since the moment he had first set eyes on Javert’s dishevelled and incongruous figure in his prison cell. From the dead soil inside him, something was born; and now it blossomed with a force which surprised him.

He remembered Javert’s fingernails digging into the skin of his arm above the handcuff. Far from wanting Javert to release him, he had been strangely glad to wait patiently until the man came to his senses. For the first time in a long while, he had felt that he could help, that his compassion mattered. Just for a moment, he looked into Javert’s eyes and felt like he had never left Montreuil-sur-Mer. Once again, he was Monsieur Madeleine and Inspector Javert was appealing to him for guidance and help. He was given a second chance.

And perhaps Javert had felt that, too.

“Valjean,” he had said, in an unfamiliar and hoarse voice. “For Christ’s sake-”

Did he himself know what he wanted to ask for? _Help me, release me, allow me to die_?

“I cannot go on like this, Valjean,” he said merely, and his tone was a plea.

“I dismiss you, former Inspector Javert,” said Valjean, touching the long bloodied fingers still resting on his own handcuff. “As I should have done long ago and had not, I hereupon dismiss you from your duty to the law and any obligations imposed on you in your service.

“I dismiss you honourably,” he added quietly. At this, Javert turned away and seemed unable to say another word.

Still, Valjean had wondered if that was enough. No; of course it was not. He needed to get them both out of there, to set them free. The bars and walls of La Force seemed but a vague obstacle to him. Those men guarding him thought he was but a feeble old man, further enfeebled by his life of wealth; little did they know that his arms and legs were those of a peasant who had spent a good half of his life doing hard thankless labour.

No, the true object was to find the right time, to sneak Javert out safe and sound and to deliver them both from the pursuers who would undoubtedly set out to rake the countryside around Paris. They were important prisoners – _political_ prisoners – and in the aftermath of the uprising, no means would be spared to find them.

An unexpected and lucky solution to his worries came a few days later, when the date of their trial was finally decided. For the purposes of secrecy, they were told, they would be transported through the city at night and on foot. If an attempt to flee occurred, both of them would be shot on the spot.

The prison authorities rejoiced, no doubt, at their own cleverness; Jean Valjean, meanwhile, rejoiced for very different reasons. He had no plans to run. In fact, the very ingenuity of his schemes was in that they did not involve any running.

What Javert would make out of his idea Valjean did not know, and so for the time being his plans remained secret. He waited until the very day when they were taken out into the yard – Javert in his newly-dried high boots – and led outside the massive grim palace of the La Force prison.

“Javert,” Valjean whispered almost inaudibly between the heavy footfalls of the awkwardly disguised guards walking behind them. “Prepare. We’re going to flee.”

They were ascending the light grey stones of the elegant Pont Marie.

“You’re mad, Valjean,” Javert mouthed back without so much as glancing in his direction. _Tu - es - fou_. Valjean smiled a little. Perhaps he was.

And yet Javert ducked alongside him and let himself be dragged to the parapet. Valjean wondered if Javert realized the exact nature of his plan until their last second on the bridge and if he would’ve agreed to anything like that if he had known.

It seemed an unnaturally long fall down, into the middle of Seine.

Valjean’s first impression was that of a cold silent darkness all around him. He was aware that he was being dragged somewhere; and yet he could not feel the direction or hear the noise of the current. The water felt like cotton in his ears.

His second impression was that of a weight keeping him from swimming towards the surface – a great precious weight at his right wrist.

Valjean allowed himself to sink lower. A strong current rolled over his shoulders and his naked head. He had the feeling that below him was not water but pure black, freezing nothingness. And from this nothingness he, straining his arms, lifted Javert’s body. He could just make out Javert’s eyes in the gloom; they were still open. But he barely moved, and helplessness was written all over his face. The cold water numbed him instantly, and his swimming skills clearly left something to be desired.

Valjean clutched Javert to his chest and reached towards the light patch of water above their heads. There. If he kept this up, they would soon break the surface… There. Panting, they emerged right in the middle of the river.

Here, the current ran strong and clear; the water was dark but surprisingly transparent. Seine caught them and carried them gently but swiftly. Somewhere on their left, meadowsweet rustled in the wind; this was the only sign that let Valjean know about the proximity of the shore. Other than that, they floated in the depths of the night gloom and had no more clue as to where they were than, presumably, their unfortunate guards.

It was a good hour and a half before Valjean finally thought it safe to swim to the shore.

“You _are_ insane,” concluded Javert, climbing out and hesitantly standing up. His legs were distinctly wobbly and he had some difficulty remaining upright, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

They were no longer chained together. This felt strange – unusual – almost uncomfortable.

“Yet we’re free men now,” Valjean pointed out reasonably. This seemed to have an odd effect on Javert.

“Free?” he asked, in a strange voice. He was shivering slightly from the cold, and yet it did not seem to occur to him to button up his coat. “But what will we do? What will I do?”

At this Valjean walked towards him.

“Javert,” he began, a little hesitantly. Javert looked at him, his eyes feverish. “Allow me to help you.”

This finally seemed too much for Javert. He turned on his heels, as though to walk away; but he went nowhere. He stood with his shoulders hunched and his hand clapped tightly over his eyes. At first he was silent; then he let out a small constrained sound. His whole body was shaking.

“Javert,” Valjean repeated, quite stricken. At last he dared approach Javert and put a hand on his back. Javert didn’t seem to mind.

“What use would I be?” he finally managed to get out, his teeth clenched. “I’m not even police anymore. I am no one.”

Valjean's fingers moved slightly between Javert's shoulder blades, attempting to quieten his convulsive, barking sobs. The stars shone upon them that night just as they shone upon every leaf and blade of grass, indifferent to the world and making no distinction between a man and a beast, a convict and a gendarme.

“You may have no rank, but you have a name. Your reputation may be ruined; yet you have your honour. I have seen many a man in this land that were worse than you, Javert.”


End file.
